View Single Post
Old 10-25-19, 07:53 AM
  #81  
chas58
Senior Member
 
chas58's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Michigan
Posts: 4,863

Bikes: too many of all kinds

Mentioned: 35 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 1147 Post(s)
Liked 415 Times in 335 Posts
Maybe I didn’t explain it well. I was driving in a car.
I'm not sure I see the problem. You are driving a car and you are upset someone on a light weight EV kept up with you? Most people drive to work solo in heavy expensive cars, and someone is on a light electric vehicle and that is bad? Sounds good to me. Or are you saying that at a certain speed one should have a license? That is a reasonable argument if that is what you are saying. Easy to fix - move to Europe. LoL. Personally, I think having a roughly ~15mph assist speed limit on ebikes rather defeats the purpose.

The crazy thing about the US is that there is no infrastructure for vehicles that travel in the 15-25mph speed range (although that is changing a bit).

Can you ride 30mph for any distance on a flat road?
I can't unless i'm going down an incline.
But everyone can do 30mph on a e-bike.
Its kinda fun. Drafting behind an SUV, or a delivery van, I'm happy in the 25-30mph range. Its one of favorite parts of my commute if/when I get to do that. It requires some traffic though, as most people will go faster if nothing is in front of them. But, in a line of cars with the lead doing near the speed limit on a 25mph road - sure.

So, what is your solution? No ebikes on public roads? License everyone over a certain speed? Lord, you'll get all kinds of answers over what that speed will be. Then there is the American ideal of we want our freedom and certainly don't want the restrictions on "personal freedom" that Europe seems to impose.

Generally, the US has gravitated to 28mph as the limit on pedal assist ebikes - which seems reasonable to me. Certainly doing much over that without pedaling is moped territory.
chas58 is offline  
Likes For chas58: